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9.4.20127.30.2012

There’s lots of adoptable dogs at the Los Angeles animal shelters right now, especially small ones, little Chihuahuas, deerheads and appleheads, kept many to a cage, as they seem to enjoy being together and are usually not kept in solitary, like the magnificent St Bernard or the majestic Pitbull.

They run all over themselves, little legs holding tiny bodies aloft, sometimes barking but more often not, jumping up on the metal bars to get a closer look at you.

I can’t get one today, I leave town tomorrow, and I can’t handle another pet right now, but oh, if I could, I would take them all.

I have a serious hoarding streak, somewhat abated by the flurry of reality shows on the subject, and the fear and shame of being one of those people, discovered in their modest homes with hundreds of animals, unable to cope with the truth of it, keeps me from acting on my impulses.

I want to be covered in dog hair, in muzzles and nuzzles. I love dogs, and there can never be too many, but that is the danger in my thinking.

But if I could, I would, and I would start with the Chihuahuas of Los Angeles. There’s one right now I saw two times in my subsequent visits to the pound. She’s a teensy little shaky redhead chi mix, and she’s wearing a tshirt that is too big for her scrawny frame, and the neckline of it has stretched enough for her little dog shoulder to peek through, so the effect is that she has got on a very chic off the shoulder garment. Her elegant bones can be seen underneath her soft red fur, and her tear stained eyes appear huge on her birdlike chi face. I want to scoop her up and wrap her shaky body around my neck, and we would just be like that, forever and ever.

Adopting shelter dogs is a wonderful thing to do, but know your limits, I guess, is what I am trying to say.

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Thank you MC for this post and giving a shout to rescue.
I feel the same way and dream of living in a big space with lots of dogs. I can’t do that now, but what I can do is donate to rescue efforts — and now I am soap-boxing about it.

There are tons of rescues in every state sinking in debt who fight the good fight every day to save dogs from the harsh life and death of shelters. No amount is too small.